


And so it begins

by icemakestars



Series: Learning to love [1]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Children, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cutesy, Drabble, Fluff, Holding Hands, M/M, different time, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-01-05 23:46:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icemakestars/pseuds/icemakestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a year since Natsu has joined the guild and yet he's feeling really down. Surprisingly, the only person capable of soothing the dragon slayer is Gray. Fire and ice are two colliding elements, but what will happen when the rivalry between the pair turns into more?</p>
<p>Set when Natsu is 11 and Gray is 12.</p>
<p>This is being re-uploaded with less mistakes and a few more paragraphs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And so it begins

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, this story is strictly yaoi, so if you're not into that then I suggest you stop reading now. This is also the first Fairy Tail fanfiction I've ever written, so please politely tell me in the comments if I've made any mistakes, or tweet me (@5sostfuhemmo). I intend to make this into a three part series, so if you like this then please stay with it! (There will be smut in some form in the next one, just as a pre-warning). So... yeah. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Side note: this content is loosely based on two pieces of fanart I've seen, and also that flashback when Erza and Gray were young and he finds her crying... yeah, that one.
> 
> Also, I don't own any of these characters etc. Everything goes to Hiro Mashima for his original ideas.

The first time they said it, Natsu was 11 and Gray was 12.

  
Natsu sat in front of the river, watching as small pieces of rubbish were swept away. He'd follow them with his blurred vision, trying to distract himself from the water in his eyes and fracture in his heart.

  
It had been a whole year since the pink haired maverick had joined the fairy tail guild, which also meant it had been just over a year since he had woken up, stumbled outside rubbing the sleep from his eyes and murmured 'Mornin', Igneel' just to find that the fire dragon had vanished.

  
Now, Natsu wouldn't say that he was a particularly emotional boy, not compared to the likes of Elfman, anyway, but on days like this he couldn't pretend that losing his step father hadn't crumbled a piece of him away. All of the children who took shelter at the guild- Lisanna and her innocence, Mira and Erza with their habit of dragging Natsu into most of their crazed fights, even that stupid, droopy eyed, Ice Princess Gray- helped to make Natsu a bit less lonely, but none of them could ever compare to the warmth and solidity he felt when he was with Igneel.

  
The boy was hurt, deeply so, and he wasn't sure if an unlimited amount of time with his new friends- no, his new family- could fix that gaping wound. But even more than that, Natsu was confused. He was happy with Igneel, learning all of the dragon slaying arts and, maybe more importantly, learning to control them. The small boy couldn't really remember his life before the dragon had taken him in, so all he really knew was Igneel and the life they shared with one another.

As another cascade of scalding hot tears began to damp his reddened cheeks, he folded his body inward, curling his bandaged knees towards his bruised torso and winced; they were both still sore after his last fight with Erza. The dragon slayer sobbed gently into his knees, his body shaking with the force of his emotions.

  
"Hey, Flame Brain! What are you doing lazing out here when we could be settling this once and for all! Let's find out which one of us is stronger." The challenging tone of Gray pierced Natsu's vale which protected him against the world and it was all he could do not to scream his frustration. Was it that difficult to get peace in this town, dammit!  
What made it even worse for the young dragon slayer was not what Gray was asking (Wakaba had recently said "Natsu and Gray are fighting? Must be Tuesday!", to which Macao had replied "Or Thursday, or Sunday, or bloody Christmas!", and the two young men would be correct. A brawl between the dragon slayer and the ice-make wizard had become the norm, a day didn't pass without it. Nor did the day pass without Erza beating both boys to a pulp because of their inability to get along, but that is another story, one both Natsu and Gray try to avoid speaking of due to the sheer embarrassment of never being strong enough to beat the female mage). What made Natsu clench his eyes shut and grit his teeth was in fact that it was Gray himself that had found him here and not any other member of the guild.

  
Everything Gray did seemed to piss the fire mage off, and he clearly showed his disgust through biting words and tiny fists. He hated how Gray's clothes would vanish from his body with seemingly no input from his hands, he hated how Gray would tease him for being younger, shorter, and for all the things he could do which Natsu could not. He hated how Gray would throw him sly glances, how Gray looked in the morning, his ice-make magic... everything to do with the sooty haired boy, to be exact.

  
However, what people didn't know was that it wasn't the actions themselves which made the heat in Natsu flare up, but rather how they made him feel. What pissed him off more than Gray's stripping habit is how seeing that naked torso made his heart do things he didn't even know were possible. And it wasn't so much Gray's mischievous smirking which annoyed the dragon slayer, but more how the blood would rush to his cheeks and he'd suddenly feel more flustered than he ever had done before. So, it wasn't necessarily Gray or what he did to Natsu, it was more Gray and how he made Natsu feel. He made the dragon slayer impulsive and frantic and a stammering, blushing mess, and Natsu absolutely hated that someone as stupid as Gray could summon that type of reaction from him.

  
Now, despite popular beliefs, Natsu Dragneel was not an idiot. He was sometimes a little slow and most definitely lacked the skills of discretion and observance, but he had a good heart and understood more of what went on than he'd care to admit. Which is why he caught on pretty quickly that his feelings for the impossible boy with dark hair and even darker eyes (Natsu had stared into them enough times to know that they weren't black, not quite, but a deep shade of granite which then merged into the abyss of murky ebony which was obvious to everyone else), but he also had no doubt in his mind that he could never tell anyone. In Natsu's head now, the only thing he could do was ignore the problem until it went away. And it would go away eventually. Well, at least that's what he hoped.

  
So hearing that voice now made the pink headed 11 year old cry even harder. This time though, the tears did not show sorrow, they represented an innocently raw sense of relief, one so set in Natsu's core he felt that it might tear him in two. Because it was Gray here now. Gray, his rival, his nakama. Gray, who was one of the only people Natsu wanted to see right now, second only to Igneel himself.

  
"Hey, Smoke Breath, are you ignoring me?" Gray cried indignantly, breaking into a run towards the whimpering mage.

  
"How could I ignore 'Gray the Great'?" Natsu muttered before taking a shaky breath and unrolling from his position on the ground and standing up to face his rival.  
Gray's eyes widened as they saw the moisture still residing in Natsu's eyes, and the pink haired boy was quick to conceal them by rubbing his little fists against the hollows of his sockets in a way the ice make mage couldn't help but find adorable.

  
"Hey, Ice Princess. I assume you wanna fight?" Natsu sighs half-heartedly. He turns and his round, puffy eyes meet Gray's. The way Natsu was gazing at the ice mage made colour shade his cheeks and caused his head to swim, a reaction he was not unfamiliar with; it had become a normal occurrence for Gray, but only when a certain fire mage was in his presence.

  
"Natsu..." Gray whispers, the word a mere breath on his shocked lips. Never had he seen his fellow guild member looking so fragile, so vulnerable, and he hated it. Natsu was strong, independent, completely insane. He was always laughing and causing chaos in the guild and everywhere else he went. No matter where he was, cheer and havoc followed Natsu Dragneel like a shadow. It was a fact, something set in stone. It was a rule which, although went unspoken, was followed like a holy creed. But sitting here, crying alone... Gray could see Natsu had broken that rule, shattered it. Just like he had shattered Gray's opinion of him, maybe forever.

  
"What are you waiting for? Let's do this." Gray ignored Natsu's frantic cry and sits down instead. The younger boy stared for several seconds in shock; Gray had never given up on a fight before. Averting his gaze and blushing, Gray wraps his colder hand around Natsu's smaller and warmer one, pulling the pink head down so that they were facing one another.

  
And so the two boys sat on the murky ground next to the river, not speaking and looking everywhere other than the person sat opposite them.

  
Neither of them mentioned the fact that Gray still had a hold on Natsu's hand.

  
"Are you okay?" the creation wizard asked seriously, searching for anything which could have caused the idiot Flame Brain's distress. He saw the bruises and cuts caused by Erza, but nothing else. Clearly, these wounds were not visible. And then Gray remembered. "It's been a year, hasn't it?" Natsu doesn't speak, but nodded instead.

  
"Igneel..." He sobbed again, falling forwards so his face landed on Gray's shoulder. Eventually, the fire mage pulled away and sniffled indignantly, using his free hand to wipe at the moisture on his eyes and nose. They then sat in companionable silence, neither one daring to speak.

  
It was not only the loss of his step father which played on the Dragon Slayer's mind. Thoughts of the ice mage and the feelings he held for him added yet more weight to the normally light train of his thoughts. He had never heard of boys dating boys, not even in the lively guild he was proud to call his home. Natsu wasn't sure if it was possible for two people of the same gender to be in a relationship, and he definitely couldn't fathom how they would do it. The thought made his cheeks turn a very innocent shade of pink.

  
Natsu settled back down into the comfortable silence, his body softening as he realised Gray was now rubbing small patterns into his calloused palm.

  
"Gray, do you think it's wrong for a boy to love a boy?" the fire mage's hesitant question surprised Gray. His head snapped up and his body jolted backwards.

  
"N-no. I-I think that i-it's okay. It's the same, r-right?" the older boy stammered uncertainly, not sure if the answer given is what Natsu wanted to hear, but knowing in his core that this was what he felt.

  
"The same as what?" Natsu inquired, tilting his head to the side in a silent question.

  
"The same as a boy and girl being in love." Gray answered more confidently this time. He had a limited knowledge of this type of relationship through years of Laxus bringing a constant stream of girls into the guild and bragging about their escapades to the younger children. Usually, it was Natsu, Jet, Droy and Gray himself who had to sit through these graphic anecdotes.

  
"But, they have different, ya know, bits." Natsu blushed.

  
"Well, duh! But that doesn't change the emotions. There is much more to love then just sex, Flame Brain. It's supposed to be tender and kind and-" Gray choked off the next word in fear that his feelings for the younger boy may become painfully- maybe even embarrassingly- clear.

  
"And?" Natsu asks with wide eyes, staring at the ice make wizard as though these words are vitally important for his well being.

  
"Warm. Love is warm." And with these words, Gray tugged on their interlocked fingers, trying to convey how warm his love was. Gray knew that the message was read as he intended, because Natsu suddenly flushed a deep red and started to stammer uncontrollably. After what felt like a lifetime, he eventually managed to form a sentence with some sense of structure and coherency.

  
"Personally, I would prefer it if love was cooler. Heat is boring for me." He shrugged weakly. Gray moved with hesitance, his hand reaching forward to cup Natsu's soft, damp cheek.

  
"I've known you for a year now, and in that time I've come to admire you. How confident and energetic you always are, how much you value the people around you and how insane you can be. And through that admiration I realised that I had been falling for you. I know that we're both young and have virtually no experience with this sort of thing, but please understand... I think I'm in love with you." He declared timidly, not daring to see the reaction on Natsu's face.

  
"I understand Gray, because I think I'm in love with you, too." The dragon slayer smiled happily at Gray. The same boy who had been his rival, his friend, was now possibly becoming more. Natsu couldn't remember the last time he had felt this giddy and elated.

  
And that was it. No fireworks, or rain, or any of the romantic fantasies they had conjured up inside their minds, just Natsu and Gray and their feelings for one another. And that was all they really needed.


End file.
